A replacement event will try to ‘channel the BlizzCon spirit’
After acknowledging that BlizzCon 2020 was very much up in the air, Blizzard has called off the event.
According to BlizzCon executive producer Saralyn Smith, the company is currently exploring options for an online replacement event that could happen “sometime early next year.” Nothing’s confirmed yet, but broadly speaking, the idea would be to “channel the BlizzCon spirit” and also find “alternatives for supporting some of the high-level [esports] competition that would normally take place at the show.”
Not that Blizzard needs to justify its decision to cancel BlizzCon 2020, but here’s the reasoning:
“During this time, we’ve had many discussions about what holding a convention could look like in light of all the health and safety considerations we’d want to make,” Smith said. “We’ve also talked about different paths we could take, and how each one could be complicated by fluctuations in national and local health guidelines in the months ahead. Ultimately, after considering our options, we’ve come to the very difficult decision to not have BlizzCon this year.”
It’s for the best – especially given how international the event is. Blizzard wouldn’t have been able to host a physical event that felt true to BlizzCon, and Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 still feel a long way off.
An Update on BlizzCon [Blizzard]